Scaling Clean Hydrogen

You have raised €16 million in venture capital from investors like Aramco-, Shell, Peak- and AP Ventures. Can you walk us through your earliest milestones and lessons learned?

Our early milestones were focused on validating the technology and building a foundation. First, securing those key patents and initial funding. Second, assembling a core team with the right mix of technical and commercial expertise. Third, launching our first lab-scale pilots. We learned quickly that scaling from lab to industry isn't just technical—it's about supply chain, regulatory hurdles, and customer needs. Automation was key to making production efficient, and those experiences not only improved our product but built a team culture centered on agility and problem-solving.

What real-world challenges did your team overcome during the early pilot projects?

Our first field pilot at Equinor’s plant was a true test as integrating a new membrane system into a live, operating chemical plant meant facing fluctuating process conditions, unexpected impurities, and power interruptions. We encountered issues like thermal shock to the membranes during power loss and pressure spikes that risked damaging the system. The team responded by redesigning the insulation, adding heating backups, and improving the pressure control systems. We also quickly adapted to strict safety requirements, redesigning our skid for blast protection. Those challenges taught us resilience and refined our tech, leading to separators that now operate reliably at scale. It's all part of the journey, turning lab concepts into industrial reality. 

How has your hydrogen separation technology evolved since the first prototypes?

Scaling from lab batches to commercial volumes was a steep learning curve. Initially, we struggled with membrane defects—tiny pinholes that destroyed hydrogen purity. Switching from complex geometries to a planar, flat membrane design allowed us to use controlled, semiconductor-like deposition methods, greatly improving quality and yield. Automation was key. Establishing a semi-automated, in-house production line ensured consistency and efficiency. Sourcing high-purity palladium at reasonable cost was another challenge, but our investors’ networks and early volume commitments helped secure reliable supply and encouraged recycling efforts. We also partnered with specialists to redesign seals and assemblies, making large-scale module production more robust and scalable. It's been a steep learning curve, but these evolutions have made our separators not just viable but superior for heavy-duty applications. 

Your core innovation is an ultra-thin, palladium-based membrane. Can you walk us through how a mixed gas stream becomes ultra-pure hydrogen on the other side? 

Many legacy systems require extensive pre-treatment or cooling while your separators operate at 300–400°C and tolerate steam. What advancements in membrane design or stacking made that possible?

The main breakthrough was developing a palladium alloy that remains stable and highly permeable at high temperatures, even with steam present. This allows us to run the membranes “hot,” directly handling reformer or cracker output without pre-cooling or drying. We engineered the support structure and seals to accommodate thermal expansion and repeated heating cycles, using high-temperature alloys and flexible gaskets. Our stack design ensures that the system tolerates moisture and avoids condensation, so steam simply passes through with the tail gas. These innovations mean our units can operate right at the source, simplifying integration and eliminating the need for additional gas conditioning steps. 

Can you comment on the range of feedstock sources you’ve tested your membranes with and which have proven viable for large-scale decarbonization?

We have tested everything from natural gas reformates to biogas and ammonia cracks. Our core membrane technology stays the same, but we adapt the system’s supporting components based on the specific feedstock. For sulfur-rich gases, we add guard beds. For ammonia cracking, we integrate with reactors at compatible temperatures. We adjust operating pressures, stages, and pre-treatment modules as needed. The membrane’s selectivity and durability remain constant, so as long as we protect it from poisoning and operate within design limits, it consistently delivers high-purity hydrogen. This modular approach enables us to address a wide range of gas streams, from biogas reformate to natural gas blends, while maintaining robust performance across all applications. 

In what applications have you seen your separators deliver the biggest leap in CO₂ savings or operational efficiency?

Well, our largest impacts so far have been in oil refining and steel production. In refineries, recovering hydrogen from purge or off-gas streams directly reduces the need for new hydrogen production via steam methane reforming, which is highly carbon-intensive. For every kilogram of hydrogen we recover, about 9–10 kg of CO₂ emissions are avoided. That's a big deal. In steel, particularly in direct reduced iron (DRI) plants, recycling unspent hydrogen increases overall efficiency and cuts emissions. And in maritime, our technology enables pure, on-demand hydrogen from fuels like ammonia, helping ships switch from diesel to zero-carbon operation with minimal onboard complexity. 

Can you tell us about a project or pilot where you were able to demonstrate your technology and its economic or environmental benefits?

One standout case is this agricultural biogas project where our separator was deployed. Our partner achieved 99.999% hydrogen purity, allowing them to feed directly into fuel cells. At the same time, CO₂ was captured for local utilization or sequestration. This not only improved their emissions profile by cutting significant greenhouse gas emissions but also reduced operational costs by recycling hydrogen that would otherwise be lost. The system’s reliability meant fewer shutdowns and maintenance interventions, and the customer reported both faster payback and a stronger sustainability story, which opened up new business opportunities with green hydrogen off-take agreements. It's exciting to see that kind of transformation firsthand. 

Your compact, solid-state design comes with outstanding vibration tolerance and low maintenance. How has that opened doors in hard-to-access environments or applications?

Our solid-state, no-moving-parts design is especially attractive in environments where maintenance is difficult and reliability is paramount, like offshore platforms or ships. Traditional systems often struggle with vibration, tilting, and limited service access, but our units handle these challenges with ease. This has enabled us to pursue applications in maritime fuel systems, offshore hydrogen production, and even remote industrial sites. The low maintenance and compact footprint are particularly valued by operators, reducing downtime and making it feasible to deploy hydrogen purification or recovery in places that were previously off-limits to conventional technology. 

What are your immediate priorities for scaling, and which new markets are you most excited to enter first?

Our top priority is ramping up production and delivery capacity. We have built a new facility and are hiring, automating, and optimizing to move from tens to hundreds of units per year. We’re also scaling up our project execution and support teams to handle multiple, simultaneous deployments worldwide. India’s refinery and fertilizer sector is especially promising due to the scale and policy support for hydrogen. The maritime fuel market is another frontier, with demand for reliable, onboard hydrogen solutions growing rapidly. These new markets offer both scale and the chance to accelerate global decarbonization. 

Looking ahead to emerging value chains such as green ammonia shipping or pipeline deblending, how do you see your separators fitting into those evolving business models?

We see our separators as the crucial “last step” in new hydrogen value chains. For green ammonia shipping, our units will sit at import terminals or on vessels, extracting high-purity hydrogen from cracked ammonia and feeding it directly into local infrastructure or fuel cells. In pipeline deblending, as hydrogen is increasingly blended with natural gas for transport, our membranes will enable cost-effective extraction of pure hydrogen at distribution points or fueling stations. This flexibility and modularity make our technology a natural fit for evolving, decentralized energy networks, unlocking new business models for hydrogen delivery and utilization. 

Fast-forward five to ten years―what does a low-carbon hydrogen economy look like to you, and what role will Hydrogen Mem-Tech play in making it real?

In five to ten years, I envision hydrogen as a routine part of global energy and industrial systems, fueling steel, chemicals, refineries, shipping, and transport industries. Our membranes will be ubiquitous, ensuring that hydrogen is always available at the required purity, maximizing its use, and eliminating waste. Whether it’s at production sites, along storage and distribution networks, or at the point of end use, we will be the technology quietly enabling a circular, cost-effective hydrogen economy. By increasing efficiency and supporting new carrier-based models, we’ll help make clean hydrogen both practical and scalable, accelerating the path to deep decarbonization.